Reality check.

It’s natural to view the past through blurred glasses that focalise on events which affirm our worldview. I think I’ve been guilty of this. Writing this blog has forced me to remember the first 6 months, and it seems like such a world ago. I really hope I haven’t glossed over the bad too much and accentuated the positive (even thought that’s what the song tells us to do!). Smug mummy attitude always precedes major hair tearing frustrated mummy. Nothing like an irritated child to land us smack on the cold stone floor. The purpose of this post is not negative, if anything I wanted to make sure no one reads my experience (especially my previous post) and feels inadequate or abnormal. Having twin nieces newly on the block has brought back memory flashes of Curly as a newborn…and not all the good memories. “They” warn you the first few months become a blur, they warn you about labour memory loss. I didn’t really believe it. Now I do. Dates and weeks are a bit hazy, and often change depending on who I talk to, especially to the “how long did you breastfeed?” question, it could be anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks.

From when Curly was 4/5 months old I have such positive memories, and these largely outweigh the bad. I think because at that point the whole ‘baby’ thing was becoming a teeny bit less mysterious. As a result, it’s easy to look back at the early time and mesh it all together through my now smug mummy confident eyes. But when I try to remember the everyday specifics after returning home from the NICU at 7 weeks, to 5 months of age it’s all a bit of a haze. This is a frustrating biological quirk for other mums looking for advice, it’s difficult to get clear “in my experience” advice because no one really know what the heck they did!

H. is good at reminding me, oxytocin wasn’t befuddling his head at the time. He reminded me of nights spent wondering what on earth could be wrong with this tiny crying human, is it gas, teething, hunger? Hundreds of google searches trying to work out what was the best approach to “fix” things. Somehow you make it through that time though, and once out, they’re not painful memories (for me at least). Lately the thought of having number two has been creeping in. “It’ll be so easy a second time round!”, “newborns just sleep and eat!”, so I tell myself. But I think I’ve just fallen for the oldest procreation trick in the book…memory loss.